The Center on Education Policy (CEP) has undertaken a project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education. Advised by a balanced panel of four education experts, CEP has commissioned a series of papers on key issues, requiring the authors to provide evidence of the effects of various programs, initiatives, and recommendations contained in the papers. Each paper is peer-reviewed by individuals with diverse points of view on the issue. The result of these efforts will be a set of recommendations for the new President and Congress for shaping the federal role in elementary and secondary education.

As part of this project, CEP will convene a series of public forums to discuss the commissioned papers. The next forums will take place on November 19th & 20th 2261 Rayburn House Office Building from 9:00 a.m. to noon. On November 19th, papers will be presented by Heather Weiss of the Harvard Family Research Project and Sharon Lynn Kagan of Columbia University. Dr. Weiss's paper addresses the federal role in out of school learning. Dr. Kagan's paper is on early childhood education. On November 20th, Laura S. Hamilton and Brian M. Stecher of the RAND Corporation will present their paper on standards-based education reform, and W. James Popham of the University of California at Los Angeles will present his paper on the role of assessments in federal education programs.

If you would like to attend these forums, please RSVP by sending an email to cep-dc@cep-dc.org. In the subject line, please enter the date(s) of which forum you would like to attend.

Other public forums will follow in the near future. As the dates and topics of the future forums are established, we will post them on our web site and send out notices on our list serve. If you would like to join our list serve, please send an email to cep-dc@cep-dc.org.